As an amateur cellist and pianist I have for many years been dissatisfied with the tonal quality of such instruments and have conducted a great many experiments in an effort to find a treatment which would greatly improve the quality of the timbre of musical instruments in which strings pass over a bridge member which in turn rests upon a sounding board of wood. Such instruments include the piano, violin family, guitar, etc.
What distinguishes the sound of one type of instruments from another is the mix of harmonics. In stringed instruments, that mix, in modern instruments, is characterized by an excessively large number of the higher harmonics. The result is to impart shrillness and dissonance to the sound. My invention relates to a process of treating such instruments to reduce the content of the higher harmonics and thereby produce a more sonorous, richer timbre.
Wood is not homogeneous as to density, flexibility and other physical characteristics. The nature of each piece of wood depends upon many factors including the chemical nature of the soil in which its tree grew, the climatic conditions experienced by the tree, and perhaps even the composition of the air in which the tree grew. Hence it is not possible to prescribe a definite thickness for the spruce in the belly or back of a member of the violin family or for the sounding board of a piano. One cannot predict the tone quality produced. That accounts for the well-known fact that instruments of identical design produced by the same craftsmen will differ widely in quality.